A Study On EFL Teachers,Self-efficacy In Chinese Secondary School Context

This dissertation is a research on the teacher self-efficacy of some English teachers inmiddle schools, based on classroom teaching in the practice of ELT (English LanguageTeaching) in China’s secondary education that has its particular characteristics. It ismotivated by three reasons. Firstly, there is a paradigm shift in researches on foreignlanguage teachers. Secondly, researchers have not paid enough attention to foreignlanguage teachers in secondary education. Thirdly, teacher self–efficacy is closely relatedwith teacher professional development. The major content of this research falls into threeparts:(1) a survey of the current situation of self-efficacy of some secondary schoolEnglish teachers in China;(2) a case study of four English teachers;(3) an analysis of themajor factors that are found to influence the construction of teacher self-efficacy.The dissertation consists of seven chapters and its overall framework is as follows:The introductory part demonstrates the origin and background of this research, as wellas the structure of this dissertation. Meanwhile, both the theoretical significance andpractical implications of this research are introduced. The research methodology employedis discussed too.In literature review, the author reviews the key concepts of “self-efficacy” and“teacher self-efficacy”, which provides a theoretical framework for the survey underdiscussion. On the basis of this framework, the author offers a redefinition of “teacherself-efficacy”, taking into consideration the current situation of English teaching in China’ssecondary education. To the understanding of the author, teacher self-efficacy, as anabstract concept, can be operationalized in classroom teaching to some degree and can bedefined as the teacher’s judgements, perceptions, confidence or beliefs of his or hercapabilities to complete language teaching tasks effectively, achieve teaching objectivessuccessfully, and promote students’ language learning and individual development.Furthermore, teacher self-efficacy lies in a series of teaching events, playing a leading andflexible role in teachers’ self-regulation.What follows the literature review is the empirical study, where the author exploresthe current situation of some secondary school teachers’ self-efficacy by obtaininginformation through the questionnaire filled out by164secondary school English teachers,focusing mainly on instructional strategies, classroom management, students engagement,cultivation of students’ attitudes and cultural awareness, textbook use and interaction withstudents. The findings reveal that these teachers are at a relatively middle level ofself-efficacy in six aspects, with mean scores ranging from classroom management,interactions with students, cultivation of students’ attitudes and cultural awareness, instructional strategies, textbook use to student engagement, beginning with the highestand ending with the lowest. What’s more, there is significant difference of teacherself-efficacy among the subjects who are different in the aspects of English teachingexperience (measured by the number of in-service years), educational level and academictitle by employing the independent-samples t-test. And a noteworthy finding fromself-assessment of the subjects’ four language skills indicates that teachers with higherself-efficacy and those with lower self-efficacy show a significant difference in theirperceived proficiency only in speaking.Due to the subjective nature of teacher self-efficacy, it cannot be ruled out that theremay be mismatch between the teachers’ perceived capability of teaching and their actuallevel of teaching in practice. Therefore, the case study of four English teachers withdifferent self-efficacy is employed to identify the differences of their teaching practice.Two parts are covered in this case study. In the first part, questionnaires are employed toinvestigate the students’ response to the teaching practice of the four teachers; in thesecond part, classroom observation and in-depth interviews are used to find out the majorfactors affecting the construction of their self-efficacy. The purpose of this case study is toidentify the relationship between teacher self-efficacy, students’ response and teachingpractice through observation. The result of inquiry via the questionnaire answered bystudents reveals that a teacher with high self-efficacy doesn’t necessarily call forth positiveresponses from students and a teacher with low self-efficacy doesn’t necessarily evokenegative responses from students, which may be caused by the probability that teachers failto have the accurate and objective self-evaluation of their own performance andcapabilities. To put it another way, teachers vary in the degree to which they believethemselves to be efficacious and understand their teaching process. The data of classroomobservation suggest that teachers with different self-efficacy differ considerably as to thepresentation of teaching content, talking time, questioning, feedback, classroomatmosphere, and interaction between teachers and students. Therefore, teacher self-efficacycan not be proved to be a powerful predictor of teaching behavior and effects. The resultsshow no causal relationship between teacher self-efficacy and teaching practice.After the empirical study, it is an in-depth interview with four teachers, which furtherfinds that individual teachers hold various self-assessment and perceptions of themselvesin their self-belief system and bring different sets of knowledge and past experience totheir teaching situation, shaping the way they perceive and interpret the teaching practiceand process. Besides, four sources of information from which self-efficacy is developed,namely, mastery experience, vicarious experience, social persuasion and physiological and affective states have strong influence on teachers themselves only when they have beenactively constructed by teachers’ cognitive processing and reflection. Teacher self-efficacyis complex, formed by the interaction of internal and external factors. Internal factorsmainly include teachers’ understanding of the nature of language teaching, teacherknowledge, attribution in addition to individual differences, while external factors containschool climate, the relationship between colleagues, teacher evaluation system and so on.Following this, the discussion of this research is presented, focusing on what thisresearch on teacher self-efficacy brings to teacher professional development in secondaryeducation. As a major aspect of self-belief system, teacher self-efficacy, to some degree,has been related to teacher behavior and teaching effects in the classroom, mediating theirthoughts and perceptions of teaching. In general, teachers with higher self-efficacy tend tohave higher expectation of themselves and their teaching, stronger self-awareness andmore confidence in self-development. Based on the above-mentioned findings, in theauthor’s opinion, Teacher Learning by means of Learning Community can be establishedas a suitable way to improve teacher professional development in middle schools inChinese educational context. Meanwhile, the basic principles, contents, and major meansare explained in this dissertation.The conclusion of this dissertation is a summary, making an analysis of the findings,originalities and shortcomings of the research, pointing out that this research differs fromformer studies in that it is conducted from a new perspective of foreign language teacherresearch and includes case studies carried out for an in-depth discussion, acknowledgingthe limitation of this research in terms of theoretical understanding and range ofinvestigation, and making comments on the outlook of future studies on teacherself-efficacy.In general, this research, based on the construct of teacher self-efficacy and the surveyand case studies of teacher self-efficacy in middle schools, enriches our understanding ofself efficacy, clarifies the relationship between teacher self-efficacy, classroom teachingpractice and effects, expands the scope of teacher professional development and has somepractical significance and implications for guiding teaching practice and improvingEnglish-language classroom teaching in secondary schools.